pirate king (pirate!au) ➵ ateez ✔️

sudden

Yunho hesitates.

The pause is barely more than a second's breadth, but it's enough for Gunho to see the moment of weakness in his eyes. With a smirk, he raises the knife closer to your captain's neck, the cold steel digging into the tender skin there so that crimson flows freely from it. Panic drops into your stomach and you almost try to tear your hand from the deck, uncaring of what would happen otherwise, but Yunho acts before you do.

In the blink of an eye, he draws a musket from his belt, raises it and shoots right at his younger brother.

You don't even realise that your mouth has hit the deck in shock as Gunho screams in pain, yanking his hand away from your captain and you see a ragged hole torn straight through his wrist, rendering his hand completely useless as blood splatters across the wooden deck in a spray of scarlet. Hongjoong seizes the opportunity, wrenching himself free from Gunho's grasp and stumbling to the side, gasping down deep lungfuls of salty air.

Without missing a beat, Yunho leaps forward, sweeping his cutlass from his side in a single, decisive motion.

And without any mercy, he strikes his brother down.

From the ground, you see every emotion flashing across Gunho's face; first surprise, like the rosy hue of sunlight peeking across the horizon, then ferocity, blazing as the ball of fire at the peak of noon, before it dies down into something quieter, more resigned, a little more... sad, as the light settles behind the waves, as the fight in those eerily familiar brown eyes flicker out like a dying flame.

Acceptance.

Gunho crashes to the ground, rolls once, twice, before finally lying still. Blood gushes from the cut that splits his front from right shoulder to left hip, a long, clean gash that spills red all over the shirt he's wearing, pooling around the body and seeping into the cracks between the boards, it's everywhere.

Red, red, red everywhere.

"You can hurt me all you want." Yunho whispers, eyes wide, chest heaving as he stares down at the corpse of his younger brother. "But don't touch my crew."

And as if that took all the effort out of him, he crumples to his knees like a marionette whose strings have been cut, heaving for breath next to Gunho's still body. He retches, body folding into itself as he tries to keep from shaking, fingers curling futilely in the fabric of his brother's tunic even when the blood turns his hands slick.

Hongjoong wobbles slightly on his feet, making his way over to his crew member's form. His hands flutter uselessly, hovering over Yunho's back before falling to his side, because he has no idea how to comfort his crewmate... doubts that there is a way, truly, to comfort someone who has just lost so much.

There's nothing but silence for a moment as even the winds seem to fall silent for him, Yunho's soft sobs echoing in the empty air. But suddenly, there's a soft moan of pain, one that makes you shift nervously... and Jeong Gunho's eyes flicker open.

Hongjoong immediately draws his own cutlass, ready to fight, but Gunho merely coughs weakly, hand reaching out for something with clouded eyes. "Com... Commander... Kang..." Blood bubbles from his lips, leaking from his nose, from his eyes, his ears. "Did I...did I win?"

What?

"The pain... it's stopped." Gunho smiles, wide and bloody, at absolutely nothing. "Do I... do I... finally get to see... my brother now?"

Yunho chokes on a sob, but Gunho doesn't seem to hear him. In fact, Gunho doesn't seem to hear anything, still reaching about in empty space, sifting through nothingness to find something... something precious. "Brother... do you see now? I am... strong enough... so... you don't need to... protect me... anymore..."

"Gunho–" Yunho begins to cry out, but Gunho merely grins, sleepily, dazed, looking as young as he did all those years ago.

"It's warm... is this what heaven is like, brother?"

Then the hand that had been reaching out so desperately falls, one last time, and there is silence.

"Gunho!" Yunho screams, latching onto his brother's body, shaking him desperately but Gunho doesn't respond, empty brown eyes transfixed on the moon that shines overhead. Yunho screams, sobs, shouts but Gunho still does not respond.

He's dead.

You smell it first, like the scent of poison twisting your senses. It stings your nose and burns down to your lungs, and without thinking, you scream, "Get away from him!"

Hongjoong reacts instantly, dragging Yunho by the waist even as the battlemaster kicks and fights against his captain, struggles to reach his brother once again. But then the body seizes up strangely, as if having a fit, before it finally collapses once again.

This time, instead of blood, dirty, brackish water gushes from every orifice, from his skin to his eyes and in front of their eyes, Gunho's dies another time, Yunho's sobs of "no, no, no" echoing faintly in your ears. You so badly want to comfort him, but your mind, right now, is consumed by something else.

You know this feeling. It scares you, so so badly precisely because you know this feeling, or know what it once was... something of nature taken and twisted into something so vile, so malevolent that you need to get away from it, as fast as you can.

The poison is familiar because... it was the exact same poison used on Yunho. The same poison that had weakened Yunho so much, had sent him in delirium, the poison that had smelled, undeniably, of something magic.

But what was it doing in Gunho?

Yunho breaks down crying behind you, but you feel nothing, only emptiness. You feel like you've uncovered a secret that you would have rather stayed hidden, because this is only the tipping point of your fall over the edge.

Even as cheers resound below deck as the crew manages to force back the officers, even as Yeosang falls to his knees to comfort a crying Yunho, you simply stare at your impaled right hand with silent unblinking eyes.

And right before you, your skin cracks like broken clay.

San kneels at your side, unwilling to meet your eyes even as he begins to work on your hand. Guilt wells up in you, but before you can say anything, your master speaks, in a tone so emotionless you flinch. Real fear spreads through your body, but it's not about your hand this time.

He knows.

"We have a lot to talk about."